We’re pleased to share that Spotify will remain available in Uruguay and will continue to give artists the opportunity to live off their art. Meanwhile millions of fans will still have the chance to enjoy and be inspired by their favorite artists.
The Uruguayan government has demonstrated that it recognizes the value Spotify provides to local artists, songwriters, and fans. The clarification to the recent changes in music copyright law means that the rightsholders—to whom Spotify already pays roughly 70% of every dollar it generates for music—should be responsible for these costs.
For our users and subscribers in Uruguay, this is what it means:
For Spotify Premium subscribers: Make sure your payment details are up-to-datehere so that you continue getting the best audio experience and listening to music on demand, without interruptions and with offline listening.
For Spotify Free users: Nothing will change. You’ll be able to continue to stream your favorite artists, podcasts, and playlists.
Spotify will continue its operations in Uruguay, connecting artists with fans and supporting local industry growth.
For more information on the global streaming economy, the players, and the process, visit our websiteLoud & Clear.
Nos complace compartir que Spotify seguirá disponible en Uruguay y podrá seguir brindando a los artistas la oportunidad de vivir de su arte y a miles de millones de fans la oportunidad de disfrutar e inspirarse con su música.
El gobierno uruguayo ha demostrado que reconoce el valor que Spotify brinda a los artistas locales, compositores y fans. La aclaración de los recientes cambios en la ley de derechos de autor de la música significa que los titulares de los derechos – a quienes Spotify ya paga aproximadamente el 70% de cada dólar que genera por la música – deben asumir la responsabilidad de estos costos.
Para nuestros usuarios y suscriptores en Uruguay, esto es lo que significa:
Para los suscriptores de Spotify Premium, asegúrate de que tus datos de pago estén actualizados aquí para continuar obteniendo la mejor experiencia de audio y escuchando música a demanda, sin interrupciones y sin conexión.
Para los usuarios gratuitos, no cambia nada y podrás continuar escuchando tus artistas, podcasts y playlists favoritos.
Spotify continuará sus operaciones en Uruguay, conectando artistas con fans y apoyando el crecimiento de la industria local.
Para obtener más información sobre la economía global del streaming, los participantes y el proceso, visita nuestro sitio web Loud & Clear.
UPDATE 12/12/2023: Spotify will remain available in Uruguay and will continue to give artists the opportunity to live off their art. Meanwhile millions of fans still have the chance to enjoy and be inspired by their favorite artists. To learn more, click here for the most up-to-date information.
Unfortunately, Spotify will begin to phase out its service in Uruguay effective January 1, 2024, and fully cease service by February.
The government of Uruguay recently passed a budget bill that includes dramatic changes to the way music works in the country (the Rendición de Cuentas). Spotify already pays nearly 70% of every dollar it generates from music to the record labels and publishers that represent and pay artists and songwriters and has contributed more than $40B to date. The changes in this bill could force Spotify to pay twice for the same songs and unless the government makes it clear that record labels and publishers to whom we pay that ~70% should bear the responsibility for these costs, this will make our business of connecting artists and fans unsustainable.
We want to continue giving artists the opportunity to live off their art and billions of fans the opportunity to enjoy and be inspired by it. However, at this stage, Spotify has no choice but to stop being available in Uruguay. For our users and subscribers in Uruguay, this is what today’s news means for you: We will stop billing Spotify Premium subscribers in December, and you will be able to enjoy your last full month of Premium. After this, you will be moved to a Free account until the service is suspended on February 1st. You can check your billing date here. After December 28, it won’t be possible to start a new subscription and after February 1st, Spotify will not be available in Uruguay.
We are also contacting artists and creators directly about what this means for them.
For more information on the global streaming economy, the players, and the process, visit our website Loud & Clear.
Last year we announced that users would be able to purchase and listen to hundreds of thousands of audiobooks on Spotify, advancing our vision for making Spotify the seamless one-stop destination for all things audio. Listeners in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand jumped on the opportunity to sink into sonic worlds created by some of their favorite authors and narrators.
Today we’re starting an entirely new chapter for our audiobooks offering by making more than 150,000 audiobooks available as part of Spotify Premium subscriptions. To start, we’re offering each Premium individual, as well as plan managers for Family and Duo accounts, 15 hours of listening per month—giving them the ability to enjoy as many titles as they want within that monthly allocation.
What’s more, this means eligible users are now getting even more from their Premium subscriptions: an on-demand catalog of more than 100 million tracks, 5 million podcasts, and over 150,000 audiobooks.
This feature will be available for Premium users in the U.K. and Australia starting tomorrow, with the U.S. following later this year.
We believe that offering personalized music, podcasts, and audiobooks on a single platform gives you a superior way to connect with your favorite artists, podcasters, creators, and authors—all in one spot. Not only can you listen to some of your favorite authors’ works, but you can also tune into podcasts where fans dissect the most minor details of a story and find the hidden meaning in every sentence, without leaving the app.
How to find Audiobooks on Spotify Premium
Any book that’s marked “Included in Premium” is available within our Premium catalog, one of the largest of any subscription-based audiobook-streaming platforms currently on the market. Our catalog currently encompasses upwards of 70% of bestselling books, with titles from major publishers including Hachette, HarperCollins Publishers, Macmillan, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and RB Media, as well as independent authors and publishers globally, including Bolinda, Dreamscape, and Pushkin.
To listen to the first book on your list, simply type in the title in Search and hit play on the first chapter (or listen to the preview to make sure it’s exactly what you’re looking for!). You can also explore audiobook recommendations easily from our Home feed. Or, head to our audiobooks hub to find an editorially curated selection of top titles.
How to listen to Audiobooks on Spotify
Ready to listen?
Fifteen monthly hours means that you can listen the way you want. Will you explore multiple titles from the evolving regularly refreshed selection or stick with one and listen from start to finish? For those super audiophiles who use up their 15 hours before their monthly billing cycles refresh, you can purchase a 10-hour top-up to finish that series. Not sure how many hours you have left? Check it at any time in your in-app settings.
One note: You must have a Premium individual account or be the plan manager for your Family or Duo account in order to take advantage of this feature. We’ll be working on more ways to unlock access to Premium audiobooks in the future, but for now, primary account holders on Family and Duo plans will receive the monthly audiobooks allocation.
You can also take audiobooks wherever you go, with Spotify available on over 2,000 devices from more than 200 brands. Users with Premium audiobook access can download audiobooks for offline listening as well.
As you listen, our automatic bookmarking feature will save your place so you can easily pick up where you left off. Make sure to utilize the “end of chapter” feature within Spotify Sleep Timer so you can fall asleep to your favorite stories without having to rewind (and lose listening hours) in the morning.
Our full catalog, including titles available on Spotify Premium, is still also available for a la carte purchases.
From beach-friendly bestsellers to riveting memoirs to the latest fantasy series, you’ll be able to find amazing reads on Spotify Premium. And whether you’re in the car running errands or doing chores around the house, audiobooks will transport you to new worlds of stories and sound.
Today, we’re excited to share that Spotify has closed the acquisition of Findaway, a global leader in digital audiobook distributions. As our CEO, DanielEk, said at our 2022 Investor Day last week, “We believe that audiobooks, in their many different forms, will be a massive opportunity.” Now, with Findaway officially part of the band, we are looking forward to innovating, growing, and rethinking what the audiobooks market can be—together.
Findaway works across the entire audiobook ecosystem with a platform and offerings that serve authors, publishers, and consumers. Their technology will help propel Spotify into the rapidly growing audiobooks industry with substantial market opportunity: the audiobooks market is expected to grow from $3.3 billion to $15 billion by 2027. Our global head of audiobooks, NirZicherman, said in his 2022 Investor Day presentation, “We believe this presents a unique opportunity to introduce music and podcast listeners around the world to audiobooks and drastically expand that market.”
In addition to offering the largest catalog of distributed titles, Findaway has actively worked to democratize audiobooks through leading technology tools that independent authors can use to publish and distribute their stories to new audiences. We plan on accelerating the growth of these tools, with the goal of scaling and expanding the audiobooks market overall.
Findaway’s technology infrastructure will enable Spotify to quickly scale its audiobook catalog and innovate on the experience for consumers, simultaneously providing new avenues for publishers and authors to reach audiences around the globe. Chapter one begins today . . .
Over the past few years, Spotify has unveiled more and more tools for enterprise publishers to embark on a new endeavor: audio content. When wading into new content formats such as audio, these companies are looking for two main things: to engage and grow their audiences and to expand their monetization strategies. Spotify’s podcast-hosting platform Megaphone enables publishers to create, monetize, measure, and grow their podcast businesses. Megaphone also powers the Spotify Audience Network, connecting advertisers with immersed listeners.
As we’ve increased these offerings, the number of publishers taking advantage of them has increased as well. Recently at Evolutions by Podcast Movement, Khurrum Malik, Spotify’s Head of Advertising Business Marketing, moderated a panel called “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio.” It featured representatives from Vox Media, Paramount Global, and Sony Music, all of which are Megaphone publishers. Each one spoke about how they built podcasts into their content strategies, what they were seeing in terms of audience engagement, and how they looked to the future.
Spotify’s Khurrum Malik moderating “How Innovative Publishers Are Making Space for Audio”
“I was there to facilitate conversation around how these leaders are innovating and engaging new audiences through podcast content,” Khurrum explained to For the Record. “How are the trends that they’re seeing serving their listeners? How can they work with other pieces of content and IP [intellectual property] at their company? Are they making podcast-first content and then expanding that into a potential video show? Are they taking video shows and making podcasts from them? That’s what I was there to help them explore.”
Read on for more insights from the panel and Spotify’s work with publishers from Khurrum himself.
At Spotify, we’ve been thinking about the importance and impact of audio for content creators for a long time. What has adoption been like among enterprise publishers?
Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are major global publisher brands that have been leaders in the space when it comes to audio content investment and innovation. For them, IP—often in the form of television or video content—has been key to their strategies. As they turn some of that IP into podcasts as well, it’s now easier than ever before to expand their podcast monetization with Megaphone and the Spotify Audience Network.
This stacks up to the numbers we unveiled during 2021 Wrapped: Our listeners spent 78% more time listening to podcasts in 2021 than in 2020. And when it comes to shows hosted on Megaphone (like the ones these publishers are creating), there’s been a 67% increase in the number of shows added. Recently, we’ve seen the addition of enterprise publishers like FOX Audio Network and Bababam join the ranks as well.
What are some of the ways Vox Media, Sony Music, and Paramount Global are integrating or thinking about integrating audio into their suites of offerings?
For CBS, now Paramount Global, it was interesting to hear how they are thinking about their existing television IP like The Late Show With Stephen Colbert as potential for podcasts. It was interesting to hear about how they’re translating TV content to this audio-only format.
At Vox Media they’re mimicking some of their long-form editorial as podcasts. One show, Pivot, featuring NYU professor ScottGallaway and reporter KaraSwisher, became a dual podcast that’s really starting to grow. And the big thing for Vox Media is always building content franchises. So in this instance, they’re thinking about the quality of the podcast, how much breadth they can get with it, how to scale it. And they’ve started to take that podcast and expand it into events. So the Pivot podcast has leadership events, for example, and a community that Vox Media is using to connect with people in the technology space.
What jumped out for Sony Music was how their global footprint of music is going to allow them to move into podcasts that are regional-specific. They haven’t taken the opportunity to do that yet, but Emily said she could see how Sony could create podcasts with artists as hosts and build communities around those. She kept talking about doing more internationally, because the footprint globally is so big.
Behind any creator is a team of passionate, dedicated individuals pushing and aiding the artist as they pursue their craft. The same can be said for many musicians, who may enlist a songwriter or producer to help their songs truly take flight. These behind-the-scenes masterminds often stay out of the spotlight but nonetheless deserve time to shine. At the same time, the artists you love can often be talented songwriters in their own right, something that should also be recognized.
Back in February, Spotify launched a new home for songwriters, producers, and publishers called Noteable. On their homepage, the songwriter community can now find Songwriter Pages, Written By playlists (which you can find by searching “written by [name]”), our on-platform Songwriters Hub, educational videoseries, our Created by Women playlist, and much more—with additional playlists and offerings to come. It’s a place for creators to connect with others, hone their craft, and explore best-in-class tips.
Now, we’re bringing some of these behind-the-scenes creators to the forefront with a new flagship Noteable Releases playlist. This new offering, launching today, will update every Friday with a selection of some of the best recent work from songwriters and producers from around the world. You might recognize some of the voices—the playlist will also include pop hits written with top songwriters as a way to recognize and highlight the songwriters and producers behind the tracks. Fans can go even deeper behind the scenes through Spotify Clips, as the playlist features videos from songwriters including Finneas O’Connell, Autumn Rowe, and Jack Antonoff.
Who are some songwriters who’ve made an impact behind the scenes, you ask? Check out the cards below to discover some of the names and faces behind some of your favorite tracks.
Inspired to dig in deeper? You can access the songwriter credits on any song on Spotify. Here’s how.
Select the song you’re curious about.
Click or tap the three dots to the far right of the track to open the menu.
Select “Show credits.”
A pop-up will display on your screen listing the performer(s), writer(s), and producer(s).
Some credits are hyperlinked on desktop or appear with a chevron symbol (>) on mobile. Click on the hyperlink or chevron to check out their songwriter pages or complete discographies.
Hit the “X” to close.
Stream the Noteable Releases playlist below, and be sure to check out the new additions every Friday.
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